Indian Point 3 nuclear power plant is photographed at the Indian Point Nuclear Generating Station in Buchanan. / File/The Journal News

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The battle over the future of the Indian Point nuclear power plant taking place in a chandelier-hung hotel ballroom has featured a wedding-party’s worth of experts.

It’s essentially a better-or-worse debate, a hearing every nuclear plant has to go through if it wants to renew its license.

But the proceeding is dwarfing similar meetings held earlier in Vermont and Massachusetts, when Entergy Nuclear, which owns Indian Point and nuclear plants in those states, sought license extensions there.

Indian Point’s hearing — which started last month, reconvenes Dec. 10 and will continue in 2013 — is taking longer and features more witnesses and parties, including a raft of lawyers representing New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, there to argue the plant is not operating safely and should be shut down.

The emphatic role taken by Schneiderman, which involves some $2 million in state contracts with experts, clearly separates the Indian Point proceeding from re-licensing hearings for Entergy’s Vermont Yankee and Pilgrim plants. Opposition admitted into those hearings was mostly from private, grassroots organizations now casting envious glances toward the Indian Point proceedings.

Inside the DoubleTree Hotel Tarrytown, resistance isn’t as lonely for Riverkeeper and the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater.

“We’re very appreciative of the fact that the attorney general is fighting the re-licensing. It gives us a lot of strength,” said attorney Phillip Musegass of Riverkeeper, a longtime Indian Point foe.

The hearing is a chance for three federal administrative judges to dig deeper into so-called “contentions” raised by the state, Riverkeeper and Clearwater. They have faulted Entergy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over the operation and oversight of the plant.

“It’s an extraordinary effort on the part of the attorney general,” said Ray Shadis, an adviser to a group that wants to close Vermont Yankee. “States like Vermont don’t have the resources to do that.”

The New England Coalition and the Vermont Public Service Commission brought three challenges before similar judges in 2008 and presented three witnesses.

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The judges, part of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, are grilling at least nine state experts in engineering, physics other scientific subjects on seven issues about Indian Point. The state’s contracts date to 2007, according to the state Comptroller’s Office, and the hired help includes a former NRC commissioner, college professors and engineers.

“Nuclear power plants are extremely complex, with millions of component parts. Critically assessing the safety of a nuclear power plant requires a very high level of specialized expertise,” said Lemuel M. Srolovic, chief of the attorney general’s Environmental Protection Bureau.

Riverkeeper and Clearwater brought their own contentions and witnesses. The hearing ran for seven days last month .

In Massachusetts, a citizens’ group raised two contentions during a two-day hearing about the re-licensing of the Pilgrim nuclear plant near Boston. A contention raised by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley wasn’t admitted.

Mary Lampert of Pilgrim Watch represented herself during the hearing — which took place in 2008 and in 2011 — and paid for expert witnesses to discuss Entergy’s maintenance of underground pipes and its accident analysis. She said outcry over Pilgrim, which sits 30 miles north of Boston, was minimal before the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster. The 2011 session took place two days before the earthquake and tsunami tore through the Japanese plant.

The judges, part of an independent NRC body, also are questioning witnesses for Entergy and the NRC. Their recommendations will be used by the NRC when it decides on Indian Point’s future.

The NRC has never rejected a license renewal application of a nuclear plant.

Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi said the presence of the Attorney General’s Office doesn’t add any pressure.

“It’s a public and transparent process and an opportunity for us to demonstrate the technical and scientific bases of safe operation for each of the participants,” he said.